About us
buku global, Inc. is a technology provider that empowers the world to earn more and do more.
buku is an enterprise-level digital tipping platform for hospitality businesses grappling with the ever-growing cashless economy.
We help hospitality companies struggling with the post-pandemic labor challenges brought on by The Great Resignation. Competition for service employees is fierce, and you could lose half your staff to another business down the street for $1 more an hour. Most business operators are raising their hourly wages to recruit and retain talent; the smart augment that pay raise with digital tips that don’t count against their hourly wage rate. With society’s push toward a cashless economy, cash tips are disappearing, but where digital tipping is available, service employees enjoy higher take-home pay.
The buku difference
Led by industry veteran Sarah Taveprungsenukul, the buku Team has a long history of serving hotels and those who operate them. The team has the rare experience necessary to fully capitalize on digital tipping in the complex world of large hotels, resorts, and multi-property groups.
And nothing raises productivity and return on technology investment like well-integrated systems. Taking advantage of our open API, one of buku’s top priorities is providing valuable integrations with the industry’s most used systems like Amadeus HotSoS, PurpleCloud, Lassie, and Hapi.
The future
As hospitality’s post-pandemic labor challenges were taking shape, a greater vision from the buku Team began to form. We saw opportunities to improve service employees’ lives and the organizations they serve that spanned beyond tips. Hence, the name change to buku (pronounced boo-koo), a Vietnamese word deriving from the French term “beacoup,” which means “an overabundance” or “a lot more,” a moniker more befitting as we begin to address these broad challenges.
Service employees now want flexibility, training and development, a culture of caring, and more pay. The younger generation is self-identified digital addicts, loves tech, need to be self-directed, like high-frequency feedback in short durations, and wants to be paid daily, even on-demand.
We will be leading hospitality to these opportunities. They are vast.
Dare we say — buku.
